


Lunch with a Side of Explosives

by ThatsNoShipItsASpaceStation



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fluff, Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-05-12 13:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19229653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatsNoShipItsASpaceStation/pseuds/ThatsNoShipItsASpaceStation
Summary: Lena Luthor realizes who Supergirl is when there is an explosion at her office.Set during season 2.





	1. The Explosion

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure I made a mistake in saying that Kara disappeared for 3 days after the Metallo/Bunker fight (it should have been after the rocket with the Medusa virus), but since it's just a tiny part of the story I left it.
> 
> Also, yes I have a LOT of Supergirl fics, but I swear I do have other stories to post too and will get to them shortly.
> 
> \------

Kara Danvers felt bad about being gone for three days, right when her friend – her _crush_ , if she were being honest with herself – needed her the most. So once Kara was back and had a free period right around noon, the reporter took her lunch break, bought some flowers and takeout, and headed over to the L-Corp building. She wasn't really sure how to apologize, but Lena seemed to like flowers and of course _everyone_ liked food, so she hoped this would work. The elevator dinged to indicate that she'd reached the top floor, and she took a breath and stepped out. Jess was sitting behind her desk, focusing on her computer screen, but looked up as Kara's footsteps echoed in the large room.

"Ms. Danvers, can I help you?" she asked, arching an eyebrow in a way very reminiscent of her boss. Jess hadn't missed the difference in Lena's temperament when Kara visited, or the marked change during the past three days while Kara had been gone. Jess was already skeptical about a reporter having such influence over her boss, and had been less than pleased to find out that Kara appeared to be flaky. She wasn't going to let the other woman just stroll in here as if nothing had happened.

"Is Lena available? I brought lunch," Kara said, with her signature sunny smile.

Jess folded her hands in front of her on the desk and appraised the other woman coolly for a moment before answering. "Do you have an appointment?" she asked, making a show of pointedly looking over the calendar on her tablet despite knowing Kara had nothing scheduled.

The blond reporter shifted nervously, but tried to recover her winning smile. "No, but you know she sometimes forgets to take a break to eat, so I though I could make it easy for her by bringing something," she said persuasively.

Jess frowned. If there was one thing Jess wasn't able to reliably do, it was getting her boss to stop working and eat something – and the human embodiment of walking sunshine in front of her was. She was about to relent and let the girl through when Kara spoke up again.

"And honestly," Kara started, showing nervousness in her tone and shifting a little awkwardly, "I wanted to apologize to her for not being here when she needed me."

Jess sighed at the pleading expression on Kara's face. Truly, Lena had never been as happy as she was once she'd met the blond reporter, and Jess was mollified by Kara's obvious and sincere contrition. If the reporter understood that what she'd done was wrong, then hopefully it would be less likely to happen again. Jess was very interested in keeping her boss happy, which made her job as a personal assistant so much more bearable – and if Kara could keep it together that would go a long way towards keeping Lena happy.

"Fine," Jess said, relenting. Kara literally started bouncing on the balls of her feet in joy, and Jess almost rolled her eyes but caught herself just in time. "Ms. Luthor, Ms. Danvers is here to see you," she said into the intercom as Kara made her way to the door. Damn, the blond was fast – Kara was already through the door and closing it by the time Jess had turned around to look. The secretary just shook her head as the door clicked shut. At least now she could run out for a bite to eat while Kara was in there, and she picked up the phone to call Anne downstairs to watch the desk for her while she stepped out.

––

Lena looked up as the door opened, amused that her assistant hadn't gotten a chance to announce the other woman before she was through the door. Kara closed the door quickly behind her and strode into the room with a bright smile on her face and Lena felt herself grow warmer. Kara's smiles never failed to do that to her.

"Kara," Lena greeted, setting down her pen and walking around her desk to give the other woman a hug in greeting. "I missed y-"

"I'm sorry I was radio silent for the last three days!" Kara blurted out, worried that if she waited she might lose her nerve. "I got called away to help a friend and I didn't have any cell reception and I didn't want you to think that I didn't want to be around you-"

"Kara," Lena interrupted with a chuckle, "it's fine."

"It is??" Kara asked, taken aback. It wasn't what she expected. "But ... you'd just gotten kidnapped by your mom and everyone thought you were cooperating with her and CADMUS and-"

"But you didn't," she said, effectively halting Kara's rambling. The other girl just blinked for a moment so Lena continued. "Supergirl told me that you still believed in me, and you sent her to help me. I probably owe you my life even – who knows what my mother would have done once she had me open the vault. She left me for dead and we only barely escaped the explosion."

"I know! I can't believe she would do that!" Kara said angrily, huffing at the thought of Lillian leaving her own daughter behind.

"You knew?"

Kara pushed her glasses up on her nose, one of her nervous habits that Lena had noticed, although why the other girl would be nervous eluded her at the moment – but then a lot of thoughts eluded her while she was in the presence of Kara Danvers. Lena felt her heart rate pick up slightly at the cuteness of the gesture.

"Oh," Kara said, pausing for a moment. "I talked to my sister about it – you know she works with Supergirl sometimes, right? Once I got back to National City I mean."

"I see," Lena said. She looked down at the bags in Kara's hands.

Kara followed Lena's eyes down. "Oh! I brought lunch, I thought you might not have eaten lunch yet."

They moved to the couch where Kara started to array each item out on the low table in front of them with a speed and precision that surprised Lena, at least until she remembered that the other woman had been Cat Grant's assistant for two years. That sort of experience left a mark, and Lena was sure she was seeing it now. Kara happily described each item as she set it out, deftly arranging everything to make room.

"Wow," the dark-haired CEO said, looking at all the containers, "this is a lot, even for you. I take it you're hungry?"

"Starving!" Kara said as she snapped a pair of chopsticks apart to hand to Lena before doing the same for herself. She grabbed a potsticker from one of the containers and popped it into her mouth with a happy sound. "Of course," the blonde said around a mouthful of food, "I'm always hungry."

Laughing, Lena started to scoop some of the fried noodles onto a plate. "I've noticed."

Kara ducked her head and smiled self-deprecatingly, mouth now too full to respond after she'd somehow managed to fit in two more potstickers. The two women made small talk while they finished off their lunch, Kara shoveling food away at her usual almost inhuman pace, when Kara turned to her and put her hand on Lena's wrist, stopping her from reaching for another container.

Lena looked up into impossibly blue eyes.

"Are ... are you ok?" Kara asked haltingly, looking at Lena in sympathy. "With, you know," she waved her other hand in the air vaguely, "the ... your mom, and ... the explosion ...." Kara trailed off and looked at Lena expectantly.

The other woman sighed, and set her chopsticks down, before taking Kara's hand in both of hers. "I'm ... well, I'm coping," Lena said, making the decision to not sugar coat her feelings. Not for Kara anyway.

"I'm sorry again that I wasn't here."

"Well, I mean, I did miss you," she said with a soft smile. Lena gave Kara's hand a warm squeeze. "But you're here now."

Kara smiled at that, and she looked up from their joined hands to look at her friend-crush's smile. Seeing it never failed to make her day, and she could feel a blush coming on from the way the other woman cradled Kara's hand in hers. She almost made a contented sigh but stopped herself just in time. She didn't want to make this weird, since she wasn't sure Lena felt that way about her. Friends gave each other flowers, didn't they? Or even sent enough flowers to fill an entire office.

Kara fidgeted after a moment – Lena was always amused how the sunny reporter sometimes had trouble sitting still – and when she again adjusted her glasses, the youngest Luthor's eyes were drawn to study her eyes again. They weren't always the same shade of blue, mostly affected by the colors the blond wore, but Lena had always felt sucked into them – she would say against her will, but the CEO knew deep down that she was very willing.

Lena's thumb started rubbing circles on the back of her hand, drawing the reporter out of her thoughts, and Kara looked down at their hands again for a moment. When she looked back up, Lena was looking at her intently, and she felt her insides heat up, and she just knew she was starting to blush.

It felt like Kara was being drawn closer towards her, and Lena still hadn't let go of her hand.

It felt like this perfect moment, stretching out.

In hindsight, it felt too perfect.

The chirp of the CEO's intercom startled both of them, and Lena reflexively gripped Kara's hand tighter without realizing it. "Ms. Luthor, the board has almost all arrived for their 2:00pm meeting."

Kara frowned, not recognizing the voice – it didn't sound like Jess.

"Thank you, Anne," Lena replied, freeing one hand to use the intercom on the coffee table. "Please inform them I'll be there shortly." She looked up at the clock, seeing that there were only a couple minutes before two o'clock, and sighed.

"I'm sorry," she said, turning back to the reporter and putting her hand with the other around Kara's, "but I probably should get to that now."

"Oh no, it's fine," Kara hurriedly assured her. "I probably need to get back to work anyway."

Lena bit her lower lip, hesitating, before quickly making the decision to ask. "But maybe we could do something tonight?" She looked at the blond nervously.

"Of course!" said Kara instantly, smiling her trademark megawatt smile that almost blinded Lena, and the dark-haired woman's mind went blank for a moment.

Lena shook off her temporary stun and squeezed Kara's hand. "Great! It's a date then," she said, thankfully her boardroom skills coming into play by keeping her voice completely free of tremors.

Kara blinked. Did that mean what she thought it meant?

Before she had any time to ponder this further, the clock in the office reached 2:00pm with a firm click.

... a click? Kara knew the office clock doesn't make any noise – she'd heard Lena complaining about ticking clocks before when visiting Kara's office at CatCo – and that was all the warning she had that something was very wrong.

The next split second later an explosion ripped through the glass wall behind her, and Kara felt her heart squeeze in her chest. _No!_ She leapt into action, using her superspeed to dive towards Lena, instinctively reaching behind her for her cape. Her shirt tore under her hand like tissue paper as she yanked the cape out and threw it out to the side and slightly up, shielding Lena from the swiftly approaching blast.

Kara was fast, but not faster than an explosion, and she only just reached Lena before the blast hit them both. Luckily, Kara managed to quickly free her other hand from Lena's grasp and used it to wrap the other woman against her body protectively. Kara grunted as the force from the explosion hit her in the back, the heat quickly charring what was left of her normal clothes.

The two were thrown forward – straight towards the glass windows and Lena's balcony. Kara's eyes widened in horror, and she desperately tried to spin them both around so that Kara would hit the glass first. She managed to get her shoulder over in time and led with one leg, instantly shattering the entire wall of windows before also making a Supergirl-sized hole in the low wall of the balcony. She kept the arm with her cape wrapped around Lena's back, her hand cupping the other woman's head into her chest. Lena seemed to have instinctively curled into a fetal position as Kara pulled her into her chest.

The force of the blast flung them both out into the skyline of National City, and Kara plowed through the corner of another building and a billboard before they finally started to reach ground level. Kara's ears were ringing from the multiple impacts and the explosion, but she had enough of her wits about her still to try and soften their descent with her flying. It wasn't enough to prevent them crashing into the pavement though, and Kara frantically twisted herself to put her body under the CEO in her arms, cracking the blacktop and then digging a channel as the two women continued to slide down the street before finally stopping half a block down.

Kara groaned. Her head was buzzing a little, but she could hear people shouting nearby. She reached the hand not gripping her cape up to rub her head, before realizing she still had her glasses on. She unconsciously took them off, but was too dazed to do much else, so she just laid there. Supergirl tried to clip the glasses to the front of her shirt – Alex was always getting on her case about losing them – before she remembered that she still had Lena curled on her front, so she clipped the glasses to the front of Lena's dress. They'd be fine there for now.

She tilted her head up to look at Lena, but this immediately turned out to be a bad decision as the world started spinning alarmingly, and she dropped her head back down to the pavement with a thump.

––

Two EMT's were sitting in the cab of their ambulance, enjoying a brief respite before having to get back to work. Hiro took advantage of the lull by snacking on a sandwich.

His partner frowned at him. "I thought we could only eat on our official breaks," she said pointedly.

"Oh, come on, Fatima, it's not like they really let us take normal breaks anyway. We have to take our breaks as we get them."

Fatima just continued frowning.

"I mean, nothing's happening right now anyway. What could happen, Supergirl's going to fall right out of the sky in front of us?" He laughed, almost choking on a bite of sandwich.

Suddenly, a loud boom sounded, and the two watched wide-eyed as a large fireball erupted from the top of the L-Corp building nearby. A smoking blur of blue and red crashed into the pavement ahead of them before skidding further down the street. Fatima just glanced over at her partner, deadpan, as she switched on the siren and lights and started the engine. Hiro gulped and jumped out of the car, swinging the door shut behind him and sprinting over to where Supergirl had slid to a stop, brushing the crumbs off the front of his clothes as he went.

"Supergirl!" he shouted. "Supergirl, are you ok?!"

He fell to his knees next to her and saw that Supergirl had someone else curled protectively against her chest – although all Hiro could see is a mass of black hair. "Supergirl!" he tried again.

Supergirl groaned and turned her head slightly.

Fatima pulled the ambulance to a stop next to them and jumped out of the front, running around to the back where she swiftly pulled out the the wheeled gurney.

Hiro tried to pull the cape back gingerly from the woman Supergirl was holding so he could see what the damage was, but Supergirl had, well, a grip of steel. "Supergirl," he said again, "let go, we'll take it from here."

Fatima had pulled the gurney over and dropped the medbag on the ground on the other side of Supergirl, before the girl of steel started releasing her cape and letting Hiro examine the other woman. He pulled on his gloves and gently pushed the unknown woman's hair aside, looking for injuries.

"Let's put her on the stretcher," Fatima said, pushing the medbag out of the way and pulling the hard plastic stretcher down off the top of the gurney, then setting it on the ground behind the woman curled on Supergirl's chest. She cupped her hands behind the woman's neck and nodded to her partner. "On three!"

Hiro nodded, and on the count of three they gently rolled the woman off Supergirl and onto the lightweight stretcher – Supergirl seemed to come to her senses and assisted them with the move. The two EMT's didn't pay the hero much attention though as they focused on getting the other woman on her back carefully, and strapped a neck brace on before also belting her down.

Hiro helped his partner lift the stretcher onto the gurney and then Fatima jerked her head towards the dazed hero. "I got this, check her."

Hiro turned and kneeled down next to Supergirl. "Are you alright?"

The girl of steel was holding her head with one hand but managed to stand up, and Hiro put a hand on her arm to steady her.

"You're not hurt? Do you want me to have a look at you?"

Supergirl shook her head. "Just get her to the nearest hospital, and fast."

Hiro studied the hero for a moment. She straightened up and looked at him, but she still appeared winded if not dazed. "Are you sure?"

She nodded and looked over to the still-smoking L-Corp building. "I have to get back."

Hiro nodded and rushed over to help Fatima load the gurney into the back of the ambulance, but Supergirl stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Wait, what hospital are you taking her to?" she asked when he turned back to her.

"NC General."

"Ok." She leapt off at speed, ruffling Hiro's hair with the wind of her passage.

Fatima had already loaded the gurney and Hiro dashed into the back of the ambulance just as she closed the first door. "We gotta get her to the hospital and then back over there," she said in a rush, indicating the smoking L-Corp building with her chin.

"Go," he shooed her to the front and closed himself in the back, checking that the locks on the bed were in place before examining his patient. He only barely noticed the lurch as they started to move, cataloging everything in his head as he continued checking for injuries. He took the penlight out of his front pocket to try and check for a concussion, reaching to pull back the woman's eyelids. It was only then that he recognized who it was. "Ohhh shit," he breathed out.


	2. Where is Kara?

Supergirl soared back to the L-Corp building, noticing all the people streaming out of the entrance. She looked to see if there were any DEO agents on the ground yet, and then realized that she hadn't put in her earpiece. She had been able to rip the tattered remains of her work clothes off herself while the two EMT's were busy moving Lena, but she'd forgotten to call in. Alex was probably pissed.

Kara tucked the earpiece into her ear and sure enough, Alex was already talking.

"-upergirl, come in! Kara, are you onsite yet?"

"I'm here," she said as she glided back into the ruins of Lena's office. "I'm at the blast site now."

"Copy that, we're enroute. Damage?"

"It looks like just the top floor."

Kara dug through the rubble around the office door and saw that Jess' desk was mostly untouched, although everything was covered in dust and debris. There was a woman collapsed behind the desk that she didn't recognize, guessing that this must be the Anne that had contacted them shortly before the bomb blast. Supergirl scooped her up in her arms and flew her down to the ground outside the building where the police had already cleared space for emergency services.

She touched down next to an ambulance and handed off the unconscious woman in her arms before briefly relaying the basics of what she knew to the police officer that approached her – a captain based on her nametag. She was interrupted by a voice she recognized.

"Supergirl! Supergirl!"

Kara turned to see Jess running up to her.

"Where's Ms. Luthor?" the assistant demanded, looking briefly over at the unconscious woman Supergirl had just pulled from the building, before turning her eyes back to Kara.

"She's already on her way to the hospital. I handed her off to the EMT's myself."

Jess opened her mouth to ask more but Supergirl stopped her.

"NC General," she said. "How many people were on that floor of the building?"

"Ummm," Jess shook her head for a moment, thinking. "If the meeting was starting, 11 including Ms. Luthor and the woman you just rescued."

"Ok, thank you," she says, and before Jess could ask for any more info, the superhero leapt into the air, going back into the top floor of the building and superspeeding her way through the smoky air to the large conference room that Kara knew Lena used for important meetings, like investor and board meetings. Within the span of a few minutes she had cleared out the entire conference room but had only recovered eight more people.

"I'm still missing two people," Supergirl said without preamble as she landed abruptly next to Jess, who was speaking to both the police and directly L-Corp employees as the evacuation and rescue continued. Jess tapped on the tablet in her hands and turned to look at the hero.

"Just one now – Kara Danvers. The other board member was a no-show so he wasn't in the building."

Kara's shoulders relaxed then, but before she could reply, another voice spoke up.

"Don't worry, I've got Kara already," Alex said, walking up in her DEO standard black uniform.

Jess turned to look at the newcomer. "And you are?"

"Agent Alex Danvers, FBI," Alex said, flashing her badge. "Kara is my sister."

Jess' eyebrows quirked upwards briefly, but she nodded.

Alex walked right up to Supergirl and put a hand on her shoulder, pulling her away towards where Kara could see the black DEO van parked nearby. "Come on, I need to check you out too."

Jess fully raised her eyebrows at this, and looked at Supergirl curiously. The Girl of Steel was famously almost indestructible.

"I saw you get knocked out of the sky by debris," Alex said for the assistant's benefit, but without stopping her movement towards the DEO van, leading her super sister away from the police and Lena's assistant. The DEO agent quickly ran some tests on Kara and then propped her hands on her hips.

"Alright, you're fine – now talk to me. What happened?" the agent asked, in her brusque-Alex sort of way.

Kara tilted her head backwards with a sigh, and then started telling her what happened. Although not about how she had been leaning in to kiss Lena when the blast happened – her big sister definitely didn't need to know about _that_ part.

––

The first thing that Lena noticed as she woke up was that her head hurt, and that there was this persistent annoying beeping noise. She groaned, and then cracked her eyes open, immediately closing them again against the harsh brightness of the lights. Where was she?

She tried to run back through her memories, but everything was fuzzy and she was being jostled around a lot which made it difficult to concentrate. She had been in her office with ....

"Kara?" she said weakly.

Lena noticed then that something was covering her face over her mouth, and she tried to reach a hand up to feel what it was, but someone pulled her hand back down before it could get that far. Lena frowned, and opened up her eyes to see who it was, squinting so she could keep them open. She found she couldn't lift herself up though, and she started to panic at the thought of being restrained.

A woman's voice she didn't recognize started speaking nearby. "Ms. Luthor, please try not to move. You might injure yourself."

Lena wasn't sure who the speaker was, but through the blurring of her watery eyes she could make out the white coat of a doctor, and she appeared to be in a hospital. She relaxed and stopped straining against the restraints as she was wheeled somewhere else in the hospital, blinking quickly as her eyes slowly cleared.

"Where's Kara?" she asked more forcefully, directing her question to the doctor standing over her as they walked into a new room.

"Who?" The doctor asked. "You were brought in by yourself, but there are a couple other patients at this hospital from the L-Corp explosion. I haven't seen them yet though." The doctor didn't spare much attention from the charts in her hands as she flipped through the pages.

"Is she ... did anyone ... were there any deaths?" Lena asked urgently. "I need to know if she's ok."

"As far as I know, no deaths, although there are some seriously injured patients," the doctor said as she flipped the chart closed and slid it into something on a nearby table.

The CEO's insides suddenly went cold at the idea that Kara might be seriously injured.

"First we need to run some X-rays and other scans to see if you have any internal injuries, alright?"

Numbly, Lena tried to nod, but when she found she couldn't – something was holding her head immobile – the CEO instead said, "Ok." After a few moments, she asked, "How did I get out?"

"Well, apparently you crashed into the street while in the arms of Supergirl," the doctor said, sharing this as an amusing anecdote with a small grin.

"But ... where was Kara? Didn't Supergirl have her too?"

"Not that I know of," the doctor said, not really paying attention. "Now I need to try not to breathe for a bit while we do this scan."

Lena looked over at the other woman incredulously at such a patently ridiculous request, but didn't feel that she was really in a position to refuse so she remained silent. She really just wanted to find out what had happened to Kara, desperately so. Her head still felt like it was splitting open, but she tried to think of something she could do.

––

Jessica Hoang worked the scene at L-Corp, coordinating between rescue workers, police, and the building managers. Thankfully, Ms. Luthor had already set up contingency protocols in case she was ever unable to step in herself, so Jess already had the powers she needed to appoint delegates for different tasks in the chaos on the ground. One of the parts Jess definitely did not want to delegate was speaking to investigators about what had happened, and she found herself, surprisingly, talking to Kara's sister. The older Danvers was quite different from her sunny sister. Supergirl had flown back up into the building to assist investigators with verifying that there were no other explosive devices onsite.

Jess had her suspicions about what had happened, and she felt safer talking about them with Agent Danvers, implicitly feeling like she could trust her.

Agent Danvers looked up from her notes to pin Jess with one of her intense looks. "You realize that the presence of a bomb in such a secure part of the building indicates that it was probably an inside job, right?"

Jess' expression turned grim, or at least more grim. "Yes, and the timing is ... very suspicious." The agent's raised eyebrows seemed to ask her to continue. "There was a meeting of the board scheduled for right when the bomb went off."

The elder Danvers nodded in understanding and scribbled something down on her notepad as Jess described her suspicions and the details of the events. "I'll put out an alert to find and speak to that missing board member."

Jess made a face, and then went on. "I think you should also speak to Anne Hammonds, she was the secretary from accounting that I called up to cover me while I went to get lunch – I saw Supergirl pulling her out, but she was unconscious at the time." Jess waved over to the floor manager that she had conscripted to keep track of all injured personnel. After briefly conferring with him, she turned back to Agent Danvers, "She's been sent to Central Hospital."

Alex raised an eyebrow at that. "Isn't that where Ms. Luthor is also at?"

Jess shook her head. "No, thankfully – Ms. Luthor is at NC General Hospital, and we have already assigned some security to her."

"Given the circumstances, I think we should put some agents there too," Agent Danvers stated baldly.

"Yes, that's a good idea, thank you." Jess exhaled in relief. "In fact, I think I probably should go check up on her personally now."

Agent Danvers nodded, and they broke apart with mutual promises to keep the other informed.

That was another thing that Jess was loathe to delegate, directly contacting her boss to check in. Jess first went around to all of her conscripted help, verified that everyone was either in good hands or in good health, quickly set up a rotation for the evening so that she could have 24-hour coverage during the crisis, and then called for a cab.

––

Lena was arguing with an orderly when Jess arrived at the hospital.

"I'm not just anybody, and I'm not asking you for confidential medical information – I just want to find out where she is and if she's ok. She was in _my_ building and I'm responsible for her."

"I'm very sorry, Ms. Luthor, but I can't tell you anything else at this time," he said, looking simultaneously apologetic and authoritative. Jess wasn't sure how he pulled it off, but she guessed it probably took practice – her boss wasn't the easiest person to stand up to, as she knew from personal experience.

"Ms. Luthor," Jess said as soon as she entered the room, and the CEO's eyes snapped over to her, angry expression softening to relief. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," Lena said, somehow managing to look calm and in control while still reclining in a hospital bed. If it weren't for the bandages and hospital gown, she could have been asking Jess to reschedule her next appointment.

A voice behind Jess spoke up. "Ah, you must be Kara?" Jess turned to see a middle-aged woman in a white lab coat with the requisite stethoscope around her neck.

Jess smiled. "No, I'm Jess Hoang, Ms. Luthor's personal assistant."

"Ah, well, she's been demanding to see you, too," the doctor said with a smile. "I'm Dr. Friedman."

"A pleasure." They shook hands.

Dr. Friedman looked over at Lena, who was now sitting with her arms crossed while she waited impatiently for them to finish. "I gather I can give her your medical information?" the doctor asked the CEO.

"Yes."

Dr. Friedman turned back to Jess. "Well, Ms. Luthor is surprisingly in good condition, considering that she was the closest to the blast of all of our patients. Mostly minor cuts and bruises, but she has a mild concussion which means I want to keep her in a bed under supervision for a while. I can tell she's one of those people who will ignore all my well-considered advice and just go back to work like nothing's wrong."

"Well," Jess said, lips quirking upwards before she had control of them, "you're not exactly wrong."

"Jess," Lena said in a warning tone.

Jess' lips quirked again, before she continued in a very professional voice, "Thank you for the information, doctor. I trust you're already in contact with Ms. Mason, who I've designated as the liaison for all injured personnel at this hospital?" At the doctor's nod, she continued. "Very good, I'll be in touch. Thank you for your help."

After confirming the details, Jess shooed the two medical professionals out of Lena's room so she could confer with her boss in private. Before she could break the details of the investigation however, Lena interrupted her.

"So how is Kara?" the CEO asked intently.

Jess' shoulders dropped briefly in exasperation. "She's fine. Supergirl pulled her from the building and Kara's sister confirmed that she's fine."

The tenseness in Lena immediately relaxed, and Jess wondered exactly how long her boss had been pestering the hospital staff for information about Kara. She wouldn't voice her suspicion out loud, but she imagined it was probably from the moment Lena was conscious. Her boss then asked about the status of the personnel and building, and Jess dove into her status report, flipping through all the notes on her tablet. She also gave her boss the status of the investigation and her own suspicions.

"Agent Danvers agrees with me that it seems too well-timed to be coincidence, and that it must be an inside job."

Lena grimaced and nodded gingerly. It _was_ too well-timed. Then her expression turned thoughtful.

"Agent Danvers? Is she personally working this case?" the CEO asked curiously.

"Well, she was asking me questions, so it would seem that way but she didn't directly say so." Jess frowned and looked at her boss thoughtfully. "Is that important?"

Lena made a noncommittal noise. "Well, I wasn't sure an assassination attempt rated an FBI investigation."

Jess frowned again. Her boss' words and tone sounded nonchalant and uninterested, but Jess recognized her expression as one of extreme concentration. It didn't last long though before Lena grimaced and held her head.

"Stupid concussion," she grumbled, rubbing at her temples with her fingers. "I'm not supposed to be thinking a lot."

Jess huffed involuntarily. "As if that's going to happen." Suddenly realizing that those words had just come out of her mouth, Jess quickly looked over at her boss, ready to apologize, only to find Lena laughing.

"Ok, I deserved that."

Jess smiled in relief. "Well, you seem to be in a better mood now."

"Yes well, I've been trying to find out if Kara's ok for at least two hours." Lena glanced up at the clock and frowned. "How long has it been since ..."

"About 4 hours from the time of the explosion."

Lena hummed in thought. "Make sure everyone you have working gets dinner, and then get me the hospital and room number for Kara so I can send her flowers."

"Done, and working on it."

Lena smiled. She needed to give that girl another raise after this. The CEO sent her assistant on her way with mutual promises to eat and rest, then she picked up the burner phone that Jess had dropped off, unsurprised to see that most of her contacts and apps had already been pre-loaded. She scrolled down the list to Danvers, thinking to call Kara or at least send her a message, and then noticed that she had a new contact – Agent Alex Danvers.

Her eyebrows lifted. Well, that could be useful. Lena first called Kara's number, but as she expected she went straight to voicemail – the CEO's phone hadn't survived the blast either – so she left a quick message, and then pulled up the other Danvers entry in her phone. The agent answered on the first ring.

"Danvers."

Lena smiled to herself. She could easily match this voice and response to the woman she'd met in Kara's apartment. "Agent Alex Danvers?" she asked.

"That's me."

"This is Lena Luthor, my assistant Jess Hoang let me know that you're working this investigation?" Lena lifted her tone at the end into a question, implicitly asking for confirmation.

"Oh, yes, I spoke to Ms. Hoang." Alex paused on the line for a beat before she continued. "How are you doing? Are you feeling well enough for me to take your statement?"

"Yes, I'm fine, I just have a headache whenever I think too much."

Alex immediately responded. "Ah, concussion? Those can be annoying, just keep lying down and let the rest of us do our jobs."

The CEO blinked. "Yes, you know the symptoms? I take it you've had one before? Because that's what the doctor said – it's just a mild concussion though so I hope I won't be stuck here too long."

"Well, I _am_ a doctor."

Lena's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "A doctor _and_ an FBI agent. You are a woman of many talents."

Alex just grunted in response, then directed the conversation back to the investigation and took Lena's statement. With only a couple quick questions to direct her, Lena proceeded to tell the agent everything that she could remember.

When she finished, Alex said, "Well, thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Luthor. I'll be in touch."

"How is Kara doing?" Lena said quickly, before the agent could hang up.

Alex exhaled sharply into the phone. "She's fine."

"What hospital is she at?" Lena asked, taking the chance. "I want to send her flowers and a get well card."

"Just send it to her home address, I'll make sure she gets it."

Lena frowned, and said firmly, "I'd actually like to get them to her tonight."

"I'll see that she does," Alex replied firmly.

After that, Lena decided going through Alex might not be the best bet, so she simply thanked the agent and they ended the call. Maybe she could get Jess to run the flowers by Kara's apartment personally, and as a bonus she could check to see if Kara was at home. Lena frowned in thought. Kara couldn't be released already, could she? She had been sitting even closer to the blast than Lena.

The CEO sat further back into her pillows. Now that she thought about it, Lena could distinctly remember holding Kara's hands in hers shortly before the explosion happened – she couldn't actually recall anything about the explosion or anything else between the explosion and when she was already in the hospital, but she couldn't understand how Kara could have not been with her when her office exploded. This was the first time all day that she'd been left alone without a doctor or nurse in the room with her, running tests or asking her about her condition, and she used the time to put her thoughts in order. Lena's eyes wandered around the room, and they fell on the table next to her where a pair of glasses rested. She immediately recognized them as Kara's.

She picked them up almost without thinking about it, and looked them over while she considered the problem. It was still difficult to keep thinking without making her head hurt too much – her one concession to her injury was to think slower than normal and take lots of pauses, but there was no way she would be able to stop. She hadn't just lazed around without thinking in years, and Lena guessed that she probably didn't even remember how. But her thoughts kept coming back to the problem. She broke it down into a list – she broke everything down into lists, plotting out all the different points was an excellent way to dissect a problem and make it easier to solve. It was something that she'd learned very early on.

Point one, Lena had been injured and probably would have died, but she appeared to have escaped relatively unscathed. Even she, however, one of the least injured of all the other L-Corp employees, was still stuck in the hospital, probably overnight by the looks of things. Point two, Kara had been sitting next to her when the explosion went off and could reasonably be expected to have had the same injuries, if not worse from her being even closer to the blast. Point three, Supergirl saved Lena, but according to what she'd been able to glean from the staff here, Supergirl had stayed with her for several minutes after. How could Kara have gotten also saved by Supergirl, for example catching her out of the air as she fell, like she was presumed to have done for Lena?

Lena looked down at the pair of glasses in her hand. Point four, how could Supergirl have gotten a hold of Kara's glasses? Maybe she caught them out of the air? If that were the case, Lena would expect significant injury to occur if the blast were strong enough to knock Kara's glasses off her face, although she admittedly wasn't all that knowledgeable about injuries due to explosion. The CEO put the glasses back down on the table next to the bed, and picked up her phone again. At least she had a data connection, so she could do a bit of research.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Jess is the bomb (different kind of bomb, sorry I'm sorry I'm trying to delete this).


	3. The Glasses

Alex was getting annoyed. Actually, she was definitely already annoyed right now, but she understood that it was a new situation for the L-Corp employees and they were scrambling a bit. However, she most definitely didn't appreciate being bothered nearly ever hour by someone asking to check in on Kara. She almost regretted giving her number to Jess, although the assistant and Lena Luthor herself had been invaluable for her investigation. In their defense, the two women usually had some new piece of information to provide every time they called to aid in the investigation, but they always, _always_ , ended each call with a request for Kara's hospital room number or replacement phone number. Alex wasn't stupid – she could tell from the way they asked what the really important part was for them. Agent Danvers wondered what exactly was going on there – and if her sister realized what it most likely was.

Alex had noted that Kara was talking about Lena more often, and she had called Kara several times during lunch or dinner to find out that Kara was having dinner or lunch with Lena. The elder Danvers tapped a pen against her chin in thought.

Her thoughts were interrupted by her phone ringing. Alex rolled her eyes and picked it up.

"Yes?" she said, sounding a little bit exasperated.

"Agent Danvers?" a man's voice said. "This is Mikel Abelman, from L-Corp, and I-"

"Are you also going to ask me where Kara is?"

"Errrr, no?" the man sounded taken aback. "Should I be asking that?"

"Oh." Making a decision, she continued. "Nope, no you shouldn't."

"Ok, well I was calling to give you the current location, as close as we can tell, of the personnel you requested more info from."

"Excellent, I'm all ears." Alex wrote down all the info he had recovered, then hung up with him and called up the on-call desk at headquarters to pass the info along to the teams on stand-by. Alex didn't have to go in, and the decision to send out the teams would be on whoever was on mission overwatch. She was pretty she J'onn was there, since he lived at the DEO, but sometimes he let the next junior lead take charge as a training exercise.

The door to her apartment opened just as she was hanging up, and Kara walked in carrying several boxes of pizza. Alex’s eyebrows rose up almost to her hairline.

“Hungry much?” she asked, putting her phone down on the counter.

“Starving,” her sister said with feeling.

Alex chuckled, and started pulling out drinks for them both.

“And I’m exhausted,” Kara said, plopping herself down heavily on one of the stools at the counter (but not so heavily as to break it). “I only just got done helping the fire department and bomb squad scour the entire L-Corp building.” She immediately pulled out a slice of pizza and started wolfing it down.

The elder Danvers made a non-committal humm noise as she took a drink of her beer.

“Is Maggie coming over tonight? Or is she busy with all of the-” Kara made a vague waving motion with one hand in the general direction of the L-Corp building, “-bomb craziness happening today?”

“Yeah, she’s gotta work a bit late, but she’ll be getting off soon and then she’s coming over.”

“Ok, just let me know when you want to throw your little sister out,” she said, mouth full and already halfway through her third slice of pizza.

Alex snorted. “I don’t have to throw you out till we go to bed-”

“Don’t want to hear it!” Kara exclaimed, trying to cover her ears with her hands, despite the fact that one of them was still holding a slice of pizza.

Her older sister rolled her eyes and took another drink of beer before fixing Kara with a shrewd look. Kara gulped a too-large bite of pizza down in nervousness – Alex looking at her like that was _never_ a good thing.

“So ...” Alex started saying, pursing her lips and idly spinning her beer bottle on the countertop. “I had a lot of calls about you today.”

Kara froze with an expression like a deer in the headlights. She wracked her brains trying to remember what she’d been doing all day, but it felt like she hadn’t made any mistakes. Heck, she’d even saved Lena from what was almost certainly her death, that she wouldn’t have been able to do if she hadn’t been right there with her.

Alex stared at her sister, watching the younger girl’s expression ranging from slightly guilty to confusion to thoughtfulness. “Yep, mostly from Lena Luthor and her personal assistant,” Alex continued, still in the same almost idle tone.

Kara’s expression went to full confusion at that point. “What? Why would they be calling about- wait, you mean about Supergirl or me-me?” she asked, with a puppy-like head tilt.

Alex almost spat up her beer in a laugh, but caught herself in time. “ ‘Me-me’??” she repeated with emphasis.

The younger girl rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

Chuckling, Alex responded with a grin, “You-you.” She paused after that and pinned Kara with a sharp look again. “They both kept trying to find out what hospital you’d been admitted to so they – well, I assume Lena, actually – could send you flowers.” Alex raised an eyebrow at her sister, waiting to see how she’d react.

Kara’s mouth made a small ‘oh’ at that, then after a few moments of silence she continued. “Flowers?” she asked almost hesitantly.

“Yup,” Alex said, nodding and taking another drink of beer. “And a get well card.”

Kara scrunched her brows together in thought. “I tried to give flowers to Lena today, to say sorry for not being there for her for the last three days during a really difficult time for her, but of course now they’ve been blown up and-” she rambled, growing louder and more concerned as she kept talking.

“Kara, I don’t think she’s upset that she lost the flowers you gave her,” Alex replied, mildly exasperated.

“-and we didn’t even get to finish our lunch-” Kara continued, getting even louder.

“I’m _sure_ she doesn’t mind about that-” Alex also raised her voice to try and be heard over her sister.

“-and now she’s trying to give me even more flowers-” she continued, growing more concerned.

“She probably just wants to make sure you’re ok and that she’s thinking about you!” Alex insisted loudly.

A sudden knocking at the door interrupted them both, and Alex pulled the door open to see Maggie there. The elder Danvers sighed in relief and pulled her girlfriend in for a hug.

“Hey you, you’re home earlier than I thought,” Alex said, planting a kiss into her hair.

“Hey you, yourself,” Maggie rejoined, squeezing into the hug. “Yeah, I was busy finishing everything up so I didn’t get a chance to text you and let you know ahead of time. I figured you’d rather see my face than my texts, anyway,” she finished, grinning widely, dimples showing.

“Hmm, you got that right,” Alex said, leaning in to capture Maggie’s lips for a kiss. They both forgot where they were for a while, getting lost in each other.

Kara took advantage of the lull to eat up more pizza before she had to go – and she was definitely taking off since she both wanted to give the two some alone time and also she wanted to see if she could go see Lena. Her sister was _way_ too interested in her friendship-crush with Lena, and Kara _really_ would rather not dig into whatever her feelings were with the CEO until she could figure them out herself. Luckily, her sister would probably be too distracted by her girlfriend to protest, so Kara could be gone without raising any sort of suspicion.

––

Kara listened closely to the sounds around her, occasionally looking over the top of her glasses to use her x-ray vision to look through the walls and see where the hospital staff were. It was past nine o’clock, so presumably visiting hours were over and if the staff found her they would ask her to leave, but Kara knew how to be sneaky when she needed to be. When that failed she’d found that striding around with purpose, like she was _supposed_ to be there, was as good as not being seen. She’d used that lots of times as Cat Grant’s assistant and now it served her well as a reporter, too. Kara had even seen Ms. Grant herself use it to great effect.

Scanning through the walls, Kara identified Lena’s room finally, over on the side of the hospital with fewer beds to rooms – Kara guessed it was the VIP wing, or something similar. Seeing that the next hallway was clear, she rounded the corner before pausing very briefly at the door to gather herself. She hadn’t really stopped to think of what she would do or say when she got in there up to this point, and Kara realized that trying to stop and think now about this was a really bad idea, so she just knocked on the door before letting herself in.

“Hi,” she said softly, giving Lena a bright smile as she came into the room and pulled the door closed behind her.

Lena had been reading on her phone and messaging back and forth with the various emergency managers that Jess had set up, taking care of whatever loose ends still remained to keep herself from getting bored. The CEO had had to fight surprisingly hard to get the others to let her help at all, and it was only after she sent them selfies of her resting in bed and telling them that she was dying of boredom before they let her dive in. It wasn’t even like there was that much to do, but she had been getting tired of worrying about Kara and wanting to distract her from the near-death experience she’d just had. When the knock came on her door, she looked up immediately, but not in her wildest dreams had she imagined that it would be Kara coming to visit her with her nuclear-grade bright smile. Lena's heart did a happy flip in her chest at the sight, and she set her phone down.

“Kara!” she said, before Kara motioned her to keep her voice down. Lena continued at a much lower volume, leaning forward expectantly. “I’ve been trying all evening to find out where you are!”

Kara saw Lena leaning forward on the bed and worried that the dark-haired woman might try to get up, so she crossed over to her directly and swept her into a gentle hug. Lena gripped her surprisingly tightly, and Kara almost instantly melted into the embrace.

“I’m fine, I had to do some stuff for work, and I wanted to help Alex,” Kara started, talking into Lena’s shoulder. She had to fight off the desire to just stay there against the CEO, but she wanted to see Lena so she pulled back just enough to meet the other woman’s gaze. “How are you though?” Kara asked, eyes taking in the bandages and cuts that seemed to be all over Lena.

She reached up to touch a particularly painful looking gash that was right under Lena’s right eye and was held closed with adhesive clips, but as she did so she jostled Lena’s arm with her purse, so Kara extracted herself and went to put the flowers and purse down on a side table.

Lena sighed a little wistfully at the end of the hug, but managed to pull herself together enough to answer. “Well, I have a splitting headache, and I’m tired, but other than that I’m fine.” She watched Kara set the flowers down on the table and smiled teasingly. “Flowers twice in one day, huh? I feel special.”

“Well, you didn’t get to keep the other ones, so it’s really only like once,” Kara insisted, trying to ignore the blush spreading across her cheeks.

The CEO sighed and leaned back into her pillows, her smirk softening. “I’m glad you came to see me,” she said softly.

Kara blinked. “Of course, I came!” she said, still keeping her voice down but trying to make the other woman understand that she wanted to be here. To emphasize this, she walked back to Lena’s bed and took her hand. “I’m so glad you’re ok,” she said softly with a squeeze.

Lena’s breath hitched at the blonde’s caring tone, and she squeezed Kara’s hand back. Her expression turned more serious as she looked Kara over. “I’m so glad _you’re_ ok – how did you get out of there? You look like you’re in even better shape than me.”

That was an understatement – Lena couldn’t see a single mark on Kara, although the other girl did look tired, exhausted even.

Kara laughed, and if Lena hadn’t known better she would have said the other girl was laughing a bit nervously. “Oh, I’m pretty durable. It takes a lot to get rid of me.”

Despite not really understanding at all, Lena found herself unconsciously smiling in response to Kara’s laughter. “Well, I’m glad to hear that,” she said firmly, looking into the girl’s blue eyes. “I _am_ sad that I didn’t get to take you to dinner though.”

“Yeah, me too – I’ll have to give you a raincheck for when you get released.”

They moved on to other topics, the conversation flowing easily like Lena always found it did when she was with Kara. She told her about the company contingency plans, and Jess stepping up and impressing her – and Kara told her about what the police and firefighters had been doing (she interviewed them, she added quickly) and Alex’s thoughts about the investigation.

Eventually, despite how much Lena enjoyed Kara's presence, the CEO decided that by the fifth time the blonde yawned she should call it a night and send the other girl home. Her protest that she wasn't tired was of course immediately interrupted by yawn number six, which while _freaking adorable how is she that cute_ , Lena felt it severely undercut Kara's argument and pointed that out to her.

"But I'm not ready to go yet," Kara complained, with a hint of one of her pouts.

Lena held up a finger. "Oh no, you don't get to pout at that – you can see me tomorrow."

"I'm not pouting," she said, with even more of a pout this time, causing the CEO to laugh. Kara couldn't help but smile in response. "Well, alright," she conceded with a mock huff. "But I need a hug before I can go," she finished with a grin.

In answer, Lena smiled and held her arms open, so Kara stepped into them – taking advantage of the fact that this time was without the distraction of having a purse and flowers in her arms. Kara relaxed into the embrace, thinking that she could sleep right here, no matter how uncomfortable the conditions seemed, as long as she could stay in Lena's arms. Finally she had to step away, and with some quick goodbyes she left to try and make her way out of the hospital unseen.

––

Lena didn't realize until she'd woken up the previous morning that Kara hadn't picked up her glasses when she'd stopped by either. Jess had stopped by with coffee – and a tea for Lena, just in case the doctors wouldn't let her have caffeine yet – and was just sitting down to go over the reports from the previous day.

"Are those your glasses, Ms. Luthor?" Jess asked as she settled into one of the hospital room chairs. Lena was probably going to be released within the next few hours, but the CEO was not one to wait around and honestly neither was Jess.

The youngest Luthor blinked and looked over at the side table where the glasses were still sitting. "Oh, I guess Kara forgot to take them with her when she left last night."

Jess raised an eyebrow. "Kara visited you last night? Is she in this hospital then after all?"

"No, she was already discharged and had been helping her sister and working, she said."

This time Jess lifted both her eyebrows in astonishment. "But she was in the room with you, wasn't she? How did she escape unharmed?"

"I don't know," Lena answered honestly. "It was something I was puzzling over yesterday, but with my concussion and having a near-death experience it was just too hard to think straight."

Just then a doctor came in, interrupting whatever else Jess had been about to say. "Ah," he said, turning to Jess. "Are you here requesting Ms. Luthor's discharge?"

"Yes please, Doctor, if you would," Jess answered smoothly. The two women sat while the doctor checked over Lena's vitals, and a couple more nurses came in and out to assist the doctor or give him more updates on tests. Once the doctor had concluded that the CEO no longer required such careful supervision and her injuries were all non-severe, he approved the discharge, and then went over a list of symptoms to look out for with both her and Jess.

After the doctor left, Jess picked up the flowers for Lena as her boss went to get dressed, noting that the tag said they were from Kara, and the glasses, when a thought occurred to the assistant. "How did Kara manage to leave her glasses here last night, anyway? Doesn't she always wear them?"

"She does, but these were the glasses she was wearing from before the explosion – I have no idea how I got them stuck with me at the hospital and not the rest of Kara though," Lena replied, coming out from behind the curtain in the spare clothes that Jess had brought her this morning, chuckling lightly.

Jess frowned, but then was distracted by work, needing to call herself and Ms. Luthor a car to drive them to their temporary work space that Lena had arranged for in one of the apartments she'd set aside for visitors or emergency temporary housing. It wouldn't have all the paperwork and supplies that their offices had, but considering that both Jess' and Lena's desks were either demolished or part of a federal investigation, it would have to do for now. At least it wasn't smoky and was large and well-furnished. It also happened to be in the same building as the one Lena lived in – the CEO had bought the entire floor under her penthouse for safety concerns – so Ms. Luthor could just ride the elevator up one floor to go home.

Since the L-Corp IT people had already set them up with replacement laptops and tablets, and all their work was previously saved to their local secure network, neither Lena nor Jess had lost any work – although a few prototypes that the CEO had kept in her office were probably gone, and potentially anything in the two safes. That was something Lena could deal with another time though, since today she and Jess would have their hands full just handling PR and managing office personnel changes – the two floors below the bombed floor had also been evacuated, either due to damage or because of the investigation, so there were more than just Jess and Ms. Luthor out of the office.

––

By the time Lena had another minute to herself to think, it was well after noon but she was only just now eating lunch with the TV turned on in the background. All of the major temporary personnel and equipment changes had been put in place, personally reviewed and approved by the CEO, along with checking in with all the injured personnel and the chief investigators. So far it was looking like the missing member of the board, Stephen Barr, had run because he couldn't be found anywhere, which was incredibly suspicious. No one had been critically injured or died in the blast, thankfully, although now that Lena had reviewed all the information, it seemed impossible that Lena herself had survived.

The damage to her office was incredible, and that made it even more impossible that Kara had been there sitting between her and the bomb and hadn't been injured, or had been so minimally injured that she hadn't even stopped working. Lena had only been able to text Kara once or twice so far that day with how busy the CEO was, but Kara had seemed her usual sunshine-y self. The blond reporter's glasses were still sitting on the large table that Lena had commandeered to be her workstation – Lena had planned to use the glasses as an excuse to visit Kara later, but so far hadn't gotten the chance – and the CEO picked the glasses up and played with them as Lena ran the situation through her head.

So far her list of facts that she was running through her head included:

  * Kara was closer to the bomb, but not injured
  * Lena should have been more injured or even dead
  * Kara didn't go with her to the hospital, even if the blond hadn't been injured, which seemed like something Kara would have done
  * Kara mentioned that she helped her sister (who works for the FBI)
  * Supergirl somehow caught Lena and broke her fall
  * Lena had Kara's glasses with her when she was at the hospital, but not Kara herself



Lena leaned back and looked at her list and it still didn't make any sense that she could see, so she did what she normally did when confronted with a problem that she couldn't solve – she went spitballing everything, even ridiculous or even outright unbelievable ideas, just to see if something shook out. The CEO laughed at herself as her stream of consciousness list started taking a turn towards looking like a "she loves me/loves me not" teenage diary.

She added:

  * Kara is always so fucking happy, like all the time
  * Kara says weird things sometimes
  * Kara doesn't understand that I'm flirting with her
  * Is Kara flirting back?
  * Kara brings me food at work
  * Kara always knows when I'm working late in the office
  * Does Kara work late?
  * Does Kara work other jobs?
  * What does Kara do for Alex/the FBI?
  * Kara eats a lot and is always hungry
  * How did Supergirl get there so fast?
  * Who wants to kill me this time?
  * What is boardmember Barr's background?
  * Kara brought me flowers twice in one day



Lena sighed as she perused the list, feeling like she was on the edge of something, as she twirled Kara's glasses in one hand. Then Lena stopped twirling the glasses and, on a whim, went to put them on, because that's just what you do when you're spitballing everything – and then was stunned when she found that there was no change in vision when she put them on.

The lenses were prescriptionless.

The CEO pulled the glasses off in shock. Kara didn't seem like the sort of person who used glasses as a fashion statement. No, everything about her made it appear that the blond reporter needed those glasses to see. Lena glanced back over the list absently, scanning it quickly, and then something on the TV she had playing in the background caught her attention. They were talking about the blast again while they showed footage a certain caped superhero flying up into the building to rescue people, and that's when Lena saw the resemblance – the blond hair, the body shape from a distance, the sky blue eyes on the close-up.

Kara's glasses fell from her limp fingers and clattered onto the table, forgotten.

"Fuck," Lena swore to herself.

"Ms. Luthor?" Jess called from the other room and came walking into the room, looking worried. "Are you okay?"

"I ... Jess ... yes, I'm fine, thank you Jess. I just ... realized something," Lena said, sounding a little dazed.

Jess, not at all reassured by how uncharacteristically her boss was acting, came over to investigate, eyeing the CEO and recalling the list the doctor had given her of symptoms to watch for. The assistant only casually glanced at the list, although she did a double take at how much Kara's name appeared there.

Lena wasn't paying any attention to her assistant though – she was running through her head all the things that Kara had said or done that was weird, but now all added up to support the idea that Kara Danvers was Supergirl. All the times Kara had left and then Supergirl had appeared, the way Kara and Supergirl always seemed to be communicating to each other about Lena – it wasn't just Kara sticking up for Lena, it was Kara trying to support the youngest Luthor in both of her jobs. Now the "flew here on a bus" comment made sense. All of it made sense.

"Oh my god," Lena said with a gasp as she made another realization, putting both hands over her mouth. "I've been flirting with Supergirl."

"What??" Jess asked, alarmed, quickly glancing between the CEO and TV, where Lena had paused the feed with Supergirl rescuing people from the bomb blast. "When did that happen? I thought you were unconscious when she rescued you!"

Lena just shook her head. "That's not important now – right now I need to buy Kara a whole restaurant's worth of food and send it to her house."

The executive assistant raised an eyebrow, but it wasn't the weirdest request for things Lena had wanted to give to Kara, not by a long shot, so Jess just pulled out her stylus and started tapping at her tablet. "What restaurant would you like to order from?"

"Let's do two different ones – do you have the last big orders that I placed for pizza or for Chinese food? Do both of those."

Jess lifted both her eyebrows nearly up to her hairline. "You want three pizzas and five dishes plus a side of fried rice and two sides of potstickers?"

"Yes, that sounds about right."

It was a measure of the different things that Jess had done already that she didn't so much as bat an eyelash as she started placing the orders. "And where are we delivering them to? Kara's home or office?"

"Let me find out where she is," Lena said quickly, picking up her phone and opening her text messages.

––

Kara got home from work that evening just before when Lena told her the food would be delivered, and found that the delivery person was waiting at her door already. "Oh, good thing I just got here a little early," Kara said, smiling at the woman. "You haven't been waiting long, have you?"

At the delivery woman's head shake, Kara sighed in relief, then opened up her apartment door so she could put her bag down and give her a tip. Just as the woman was walking away down the hall, another delivery person came out of the elevator. With surprise, Kara watched him look around at the numbers over each door before he stopped at hers.

"Kara Danvers?" he asked, and then delivered Kara's second set of takeout for the evening. After she gave him a tip as well and took the food inside, she had to send a text message double checking that Lena had indeed sent over not one but two takeout orders. Then Kara grinned at all the food in her kitchen right now and tucked in.

––

Jess was surprised when the doorman downstairs buzzed up to say that Agent Danvers was downstairs, wanting to be let up. The assistant double checked the schedule, but there was nothing scheduled for Alex Danvers or FBI anywhere on the CEO's meetings for the day. Jess didn't even know how the FBI agent had even found out about where their temporary offices were, but guessed that either Lena had let Alex know directly, or Lena had told Kara and then Kara had told her big sister. In any case, Jess just sighed and confirmed to the doorman that Agent Danvers was okay to be let up.

When the elder Danvers sister reached the apartment turned temporary office, the agent did not look happy, but Jess led her to where Lena had set up her office anyway. As soon as they stepped into the room, Agent Danvers began speaking.

"How did you know?" she asked angrily, glaring at Lena. "No wait, that's not the right question – _when_ did you know?"

Lena blinked, although she didn't lose her composure – she was used to being confronted by angry and abrupt questions, even if not by Kara's older sister. "I'm sorry, when did I know what?"

Alex huffed out an angry breath. "You've sent food enough for ten people every night to Kara's apartment for the past five days. Now _when did you know_?"

"Ah," Lena said in understanding. Instead of answering the question directly, the CEO instead said, "Did you know she once told me after I'd asked if she needed parking validation that she 'flew here on a bus'?"

The elder Danvers groaned and put her head in her hands, rubbing her forehead and temples.

"And yet I still didn't understand until after I tried to figure out how exactly I survived that bomb," Lena said, with a shake of her head. The CEO looked up intently at Agent Danvers and said sincerely, "I owe your sister my life."

Alex sighed, and then pulled a folder out from under her arms. "I have a whole bunch of NDA's for you to sign about this," she said, setting the folder down on the table and pulling out a fairly large stack of papers. The agent turned and looked over her shoulder at Lena's executive assistant who was standing there looking shell-shocked. "And I have a separate set for you to sign too, Ms. Hoang." Alex pushed a second stack of papers across the table towards Jess.

Lena looked over at her assistant. "Oh Jess, did you figure it out, too?"

"I'm pretty sure she did just now," Alex said with a grimace. Noting that neither woman was signing their paperwork that the agent had set out, Danvers added, "Come on – I'm not leaving till both of you have signed these, and there's quite a few pages of them."

––

Despite signing the NDA's to protect Kara's identity, it seemed that Alex had not yet broken the news to Kara that Lena now knew. The CEO didn't have a chance to really talk about it until a few weeks later, when Kara got a call to go help at a fire – the poor blond was stumbling over making an excuse as to why she had to suddenly leave dinner, when Lena put a hand on her arm to stop her.

"Kara, it's okay – I know about your ... other job. Just go help those people, alright? Dinner can wait."

Kara blinked a few times, then her face split into one of her signature blinding smiles. Without warning she scooped Lena into a tight and grateful hug. "Thank you," she said earnestly into Lena's hair, and then just as suddenly she rushed off, saying her goodbye over her shoulder.

"Be safe, Kara," Lena said softly, knowing Kara could probably still hear her.

It was much later, after a soot-smeared and supersuited Kara came knocking on Lena's living room window, that Lena reached up to gently put the glasses she had back on Kara's face, finally returning the glasses that had prompted the realization. Lena watched the transition between Kara and Supergirl curiously, the hero blushing sheepishly, before the CEO spontaneously lifted up on her toes to kiss her. Kara instantly reciprocated the kiss enthusiastically, still pumped from the adrenaline coursing through her veins, and the two quickly ended up on the couch.

To Kara's surprise, Lena made her keep the glasses on though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this sort of ends abruptly, but really it was supposed to be a "one-shot", and apparently when I write one-shots they turn out to be really damn long. Which I suppose isn't all that surprising.
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed it though and thank you for all the lovely comments!


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